Planning for raised bed vegetables

Looking towards summer, I'm planning what will go in our new raised beds in the mountains.

They're yet to be built, but we've scouted out the right sort of stone, that will be easy (for me as well as my gardening companion) to stack, and we'll get to work next weekend.

Quite handsome large stone blocks, of hefty proportions, were available, and would have made seriously sturdy raised beds, but I could barely lift one stone (I think they weighed about 50 lbs. each), so I'm hardly going to be able to help build that sort of wall. I'm not gifted in the strong shoulders and arms department, but I have built a number of nice retaining walls and an excellent front path, so I do want to be part of this endeavor.

I spent some enjoyable time plotting out the beds -- basically they'll be four long beds, two horizontal and two perpendicular to the house, on what's currently unused 'driveway.'

It'll hopefully be fairly easy to lay out; there's gravel below the mulch on the 'driveway' -- so we'll dig down to prepare footings, put in a bit of builder's sand, and build the stone walls (at about 14 inches).

These beds will be devoted to summer vegetables and herbs: tomatoes, peppers, squash, beans, and basil.

The main vegetable garden in the Piedmont will be fallow this summer to reduce root-knot nematodes there. And the satellite vegetable garden, after the garlic and onions are harvested, will be devoted to winter squash, and cool season vegetables in the fall.

I've also just ordered some tough asparagus crowns (all male UC 157) to put in, to join the 'from seed' plants that I grew last year. (They struggled through the tough winter, so I'm thinking they need some reinforcements!)

Read more...

Winter colors

The luminous tans, browns, and greens of winter are evident here. Our winters don't feature snow or ice (very often), but the colors of winter are what stand out.

Broomsedge is a beautiful tawny gold, the frost-bitten cool-season grasses are a dull green, and evergreens have a color spectrum of their own.

The drips and drabs of dead foliage await cleanup or decay, but remind me that the renewal of spring growth is only a couple of months away.

Gardening seasons help ground me to the cycle of natural rhythms, and even sowing warm-season vegetable seeds in flats on a heating mat (on the schedule not too far off), in a couple of month's advance of the last 'average' frosts remind me that the growing season is coming.

Read more...

Warm-season vegetable transplants

We're well past our last frost date, and unusually warm weather has jump-started the soil temperatures, I hope. It's been exceptionally windy this week, hard on young warm-season vegetables. I've been too busy to get recently purchased transplants (Lao round green and white; Thai green-striped, Thai round green, and a variety of peppers and tomatoes) in the ground, and I didn't think the soil was warm enough, either for them. I guess I could have checked, but I was still too busy -- largely encouraging other gardeners....

The seeds for the eggplants came from Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds and I hope they produce some of the delicious small eggplants that we've enjoyed in SE Asia. Along with a lemon grass plant from another plant sale, I'm prepared for Asian stir-fries.

I tucked eggplants and peppers into larger nursery pots, getting ready for a weekend away in the mountains, but put most of my tomatoes directly in the ground this evening. I can't say that I'm being any better about careful planning, but at least I've prepared most of my beds in advance.

Next week, I'll be planting squash and bean seeds, but it's a dance, with the cool-season peas, garlic, and greens still taking up a lot of space. Fortunately, in our long-growing season, there's plenty of time for everything, even if I don't have the first tomato in the neighborhood.

Read more...